News Comment/COMENTARI AL DIA

Hidden in the long term graphs used by the Met Office to “hide the decline” the last period from 1997 to 2015 shows no global warming at all, with the same initial and final temperatures and an average of zero change. Below: Where’s the warming? Olive trees covered in snow in the Mediterranean.

The high priests of Global Warming at the Met Office and East Anglia’s CRU, including the notorious Phil Jones, have admitted there has been no global warming for the past 16 years. The period without warming is longer than the 15 year earlier warming on which they based the global scare.

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data. From January 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures. The ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued quietly on the internet, without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not been reported. This stands in sharp contrast to the release of the previous figures six months ago, which went only to the end of 2010 – a very warm year. Professor Phil Jones, director of CRU (East Anglia) dismissed the significance of the plateau, saying that 16 years is too short a period from which to draw conclusions: “It could go on for a while. We don’t fully understand how to input things like changes in the oceans, and because we don’t fully understand it you could say that natural variability is now working to suppress the warming. We don’t know what natural variability is doing.” Others disagreed. Professor Judith Curry of Georgia Tech said that it was clear that the computer models used to predict future warming were ‘deeply flawed’: “‘The new data confirms the existence of a pause in global warming. Climate models are very complex, but they are imperfect and incomplete. Natural variability, such as long-term temperature cycles in the oceans and the output of the sun, has been shown over the past two decades to have a magnitude that dominates the greenhouse warming effect. It is becoming increasingly apparent that our attribution of warming since 1980 and future projections of climate change needs to consider natural internal variability as a factor of fundamental importance.”. Since 1880 the world has warmed by about 0.75 ºC. The figures released last week show zero between 1997-2012: the trend has been flat. Industrialisation over the past 130 years has made relatively little difference. The computer models that have for years been predicting imminent doom of the Met Office and the UN’s IPCC are flawed, and climate is far more complex than the models assert. Despite Phil Jones’ insistence that 16 years is not a significant period, in 2009, when the plateau was already apparent, he wrote in a Climategate email: “Bottom line: the no upward trend has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.” Although that point has now been passed, he said that he hadn’t changed his mind about the models’ gloomy predictions. Five years ago he said the contrary, that 15 years without warming would make him worried. Today, past this milestone, he is not. His Met Office colleagues were also unmoved: “A plateau to last any more than 15 years was unlikely.” Asked about the 2009 Met Office prediction that three of the ensuing five years would set a new world temperature record, they made no comment. With no sign of a strong El Nino next year, the prospects of this happening are remote.

(“Quantifying uncertainties in global and regional temperature change using an ensemble of observational estimates: the HadCRUT4 data set,” by Colin P. Morice, John J. Kennedy, Nick A. Rayner and Phil D. Jones, Met Office, 8 October 2012 and “Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released…and here is the chart to prove it. The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures. This means that the ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996,” by David Rose, Mail on Sunday, 14 October 2012)

(“Quantifying uncertainties in global and regional temperature change using an ensemble of observational estimates: the HadCRUT4 data set,” per Colin P. Morice, John J. Kennedy, Nick A. Rayner and Phil D. Jones, Met Office, 8 octubre 2012 i “Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released…and here is the chart to prove it. The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures. This means that the ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996,” per David Rose, Mail on Sunday, 14 octubre 2012)